North Carolina Republicans Address
This ten-page pamphlet opens by calling on the North Carolina General Assembly to adjourn because so many citizens claim that the current government is illegal and void. They had rejected their pre-War constitution so this Reconstruction version had been ratified; now the Democrats were calling for violent remedies to the situation. They couldn't get power by ballot, so now they want in by bullet. After many other accusations and histories, including the fact that Jonathan Worth, the military governor, had to be removed by force, it recommends voting for U.S. Grant for the presidency, and against Francis Blair for the vice presidency. Blair had said that the federal government would refuse to work with any Reconstruction governments, since they had replaced the military governments he and General Sherman had set up. Grant, on the other hand, would prevent this kind of presidential usurpation of power over states. It is signed in type by 88 Republican legislators.
Dates
- circa 1868
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Extent
0.1 Linear Feet
Abstract
This ten-page pamphlet is a call to vote for U.S. Grant in the upcoming election. It provides dramatic histories and examples of the Democrats' intransigence around the issue of the Reconstruction-era state constitution to support this call.
Biographical/Historical Note
Jonathan Worth was born on November 18, 1802, in Randolph County, North Carolina. He married Martitia Daniel and they had eight children. He was admitted to the bar in 1824, and served in the state House of Commons from 1830 to 1832 and the state Senate from 1840 to 1841. He was the state treasurer from 1862 to 1865, when he became the governor of North Carolina. On July 1, 1868, he was forcibly removed from the governorship, after William Holder had won the election. Worth died on September 5, 1869, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Francis Preston Blair, Jr. was born on February 19, 1821, in Lexington, Kentucky. He graduated from Princeton University in 1841 and began practicing law in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1843. He was a Missouri state representative from 1852 to 1856 and a U.S. representative from 1857 to 1859 and 1861 to 1862. In 1862, he entered the war as a colonel in the Union Army, rose to general, and accompanied General Sherman on his march. After the war, he left the Republican Party over Reconstruction and campaigned with racist fearmongering during the presidential campaign. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1871 to 1873, and died on July 8, 1875.
Arrangement
This collection consists of a single folder.
Acquisition Note
Special Collections purchased this document.
Repository Details
Part of the Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Repository